Five Gifts Science: Lesson 2

light helps us see color

God's plan for rainbows-  Genesis 9:14-15 says, "When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.  And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh."

We are continuing to collect information about God and His creation with our first gift, our sense of sight.

What makes a rainbow?

When white light is bent in a prism, a spectrum of color is displayed.  This is what we call a rainbow.  The colors that make up a rainbow are:
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet aka ROY G BIV

Our opening activity is of the students coloring a rainbow.  This is my favorite picture of a rainbow because Jesus is at the beginning of it.  Without Jesus we wouldn't have light, and definitely without light, we wouldn't be able to see color.

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StoryTime

While I am not a fan of this title or the author's worldview, I do like how simple he made the explanation of rainbows.  He begins with a ball and shows how light travels in a straight path but can be reflected, refracted and absorbed.

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Can we see color in the dark?

Using some colored paper flags, dim the lights and see if they can tell which color is what.  
I used colors red, orange, green, blue, black and brown.  I would mix up the color flags and then turn off the light.  I held up a flag and the students would guess every color.  We did this at least 4 times.  Every time, the answers were varied therefore proving that we cannot distinguish color without light.  

Let's Go for An Energy Walk

All colors have an energy level, just like all people have energy levels.  Young children have a higher energy level than middle-aged adults and middle-aged adults tend to have more energy than an older adult.
Likewise, the energy levels follow the ROY G BIV (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet) spectrum with Red being the lower energy color and purple being the higher energy color.
We took a walk outside using these different colors on our way to determine how fast we walked outside.

Hunt for rainbows

Using prisms, the students were able to focus the white light through it and observe rainbows on the sidewalk.  Sometimes the prism would only reflect the light.  If we rotated the prism, it would show a rainbow.

Likewise, I bought some bubble solution and had the students blow bubbles to see if they could spot some rainbows on the bubbles.  These kids loved blowing bubbles.  They would call out the colors they could see in the bubbles.  

exit question

Name some colors of the rainbow.

At Home-Work

The students can choose which Prism sheet they would like to do this week.  There are three to choose from in their Five Gifts book.  Each one is slightly different.